The way options are arranged changes what people notice and choose.
More quotesBusiness loves physics envy.
Find three successful companies, identify a practice they share, and declare a law. Add a two-by-two grid. Charge for transformation.
The trouble is that success stories are written backwards. The failed experiments become “learning”, favourable timing becomes vision, and the hundred businesses that copied the same practice disappear from the airport book. A retailer’s operating model is exported to healthcare. A technology company’s culture deck becomes scripture for an insurance broker. One viral campaign produces eleven commandments about content.
Examples are still useful. They show possibility and suggest mechanisms. The stupidity begins when a possibility becomes a recipe without passing through context. Ask what else changed. Find failures containing the supposed ingredient. Find winners without it. Decide where the mechanism should break. Then test a small version in the market you actually occupy rather than the one starring in the anecdote.
A principle earns my trust when it admits conditions: reducing friction tends to help when the removed step adds no protective value; social proof helps when the crowd is relevant and real. “Copy this company’s rituals” admits nothing except a fondness for executive tourism.
There are patterns in business, but no law abolishes competitors, timing, luck or customers behaving like awkward humans. Anyone selling guaranteed success has already found their guaranteed formula: collect the fee before reality marks the homework.